Ever stood at the supermarket till, looked at what is in the basket and wondered how it has come to R1,000?
You’re not alone.
South Africa’s food inflation has fallen sharply, but the prices consumers are paying remain elevated after years of increases.
Annual food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation fell to 0.9% in July, its lowest level in more than 16 years, according to Statistics South Africa. It was 1.6% in June.
The latest figure is a significant improvement, but it does not mean groceries have returned to the prices consumers were paying before the major food-price increases of recent years.
For households whose incomes have struggled to keep pace with essential costs, the distinction is important.
A basic nutritious diet for one child cost R980.66 in July, according to figures from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group (PMBEJD). The Child Support Grant is R580 a month.
That leaves a R400.66 gap between the grant and the estimated cost of feeding one child a basic nutritious diet, before a household has paid for electricity, transport, housing, clothing or anything else.
The PMBEJD’s July household food basket cost R5,530.52, while its basic nutritional food basket cost R6,727.47.
What is getting cheaper?
The latest Stats SA figures show that some important food prices are now moving in consumers’ favour.
Cereal products recorded annual deflation of 2% in July, while annual meat inflation slowed to 1.5%.
Maize meal fell 3.1% month-on-month and white bread fell 0.6%.
But the picture is not uniform.
Oils and fats inflation rose to 2.8%, while several processed meat products continued to record significant annual increases.
Corned meat rose 11.8% year-on-year, meat patties increased 7.8%, russians 7.7% and sausages 6.2%.
So while the overall food inflation number has fallen sharply, the products in an individual shopping basket can behave very differently.
The income problem
Jakob Holbak, founder and CEO of Refreshi, said the sharp slowdown in food inflation had done little to help households already struggling to afford basic food.
“According to the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group (PMBEJD), the average household food basket costs R5,530.52 in July, up R87.81 year-on-year.
“A woman working full-time on the national minimum wage takes home just R4,836.80 a month, meaning food alone now costs R693.72 more than her entire wage, before rent, electricity, transport, or school fees are even considered.”
The comparison needs to be read in context: the PMBEJD basket represents food for a household, while the minimum wage figure refers to an individual worker.
But it illustrates the scale of the affordability problem facing families dependent on a single income.
Refreshi said low-income families underspend on basic food needs by at least 17% a month, equivalent to about R1,155 worth of food that does not make it into the shopping trolley.
The squeeze is not confined to poorer households
The pressure is not limited to households receiving social grants. For middle-income consumers, the issue is more often what has to be sacrificed elsewhere in the household budget, or which products are still affordable.
Research from Stellenbosch University offers another way of looking at the pressure inside the supermarket. Researchers Inge Blignaut and Hanjo Odendaal analysed 21 million daily online prices from South Africa’s largest formal grocery chain. They found that, between April 2020 and December 2023, cheaper varieties accumulated 9.3 percentage points more inflation than premium varieties.
The finding is significant for consumers who respond to higher prices by moving towards cheaper products. Trading down does not necessarily mean moving into a category that has escaped inflation.
For middle-income households, that can mean switching brands, buying smaller quantities, choosing promotions, reducing purchases of more expensive foods or cutting spending elsewhere to accommodate the grocery bill.
The experience is different from food insecurity. But it is still a change in household purchasing power and spending behaviour.
When the food runs out
For poorer families, the adjustment can be more severe.
The 2026 State of Household Food Insecurity in South Africa report, researched by UCT’s Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit for FoodForward SA, found that one in 10 female-headed households was severely food insecure, almost twice the rate recorded among male-headed households.
Aliya Chikte, project officer at the Alternative Information and Development Centre, said caregivers could shield children from some of the worst effects of hunger by going without food themselves.
“The percentage of young children who are stunted in the Western Cape is 46 percent, the highest in the country,” Chikte said.
“Many caregivers shield children from the worst of hunger by going without food themselves, so the true scale of household food insecurity is masked by the numbers we do see.
“Inadequate social protection for children and adults is compounded by a deepening jobs crisis.”
An earlier study published in BMJ Open interviewed 40 mothers and primary caregivers receiving the Child Support Grant in Langa and Mt Frere.
The study, titled “To be a woman is to make a plan”, found that caregivers used a range of strategies to make food last, including going without food themselves so their children could eat.
One mother told researchers: “When there is no money we often go to bed on pap and tea. We go to bed like that…when I was working we would have pap and meat and potatoes, we had good zishebo. Now it is difficult for us, we eat whatever is available…”
Another described avoiding food that her children might need:
“I cannot eat it because…if you buy a 2 litre or a 5 litre [Maas], I think: If I make pap and maas for myself as well, this maas will get finished quickly…. So perhaps I take…I take some spinach and cook that [for myself] … or I make sugar water, and I sleep having eaten.”
A 2024 study, by Babalwa Pearl Tyabashe-Phume, Rina Swart and Wanga Zembe-Mkabile, of 120 households in a Cape Town township similarly found that some households receiving the Child Support Grant remained food insecure, with 23 participants identified as food insecure and experiencing moderate to severe hunger.
One participant told researchers: “It is very hard having your child live with you when you don’t have food in the household. The child doesn’t understand whether there’s food or not, when they are hungry, they need to be fed.”
For some families, researchers found, the pressure was sufficiently severe for children to be sent to live with grandparents because their parents could not afford to feed them.
Evashnee Naidu, KwaZulu-Natal regional manager of Black Sash, said women often carried the responsibility of stretching limited household income through the month.
“We know that many households actually do run out of food before the month ends,” she said.
“Households are increasingly becoming food insecure, and particularly women have to make the choice of sacrificing their own needs for the sake of their children.”
Siyanda Baduza, a researcher with the Basic Income Project at the Institute for Economic Justice, said the R580 Child Support Grant remained below the cost of a nutritious food basket and the food poverty line.
The food poverty line is the amount required to meet basic calorie needs if all available income were spent on food.
“Households relying on grants for survival often have to pool these grants together just to survive,” Baduza said.
Why the R1,000 shop still matters
The latest inflation figures mark a significant change in the direction of food prices.
Headline consumer inflation fell from 5.0% in June to 4.3% in July, according to Statistics South Africa.
Food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation fell to 0.9%.
But PMBEJD’s July figures show that the cost of its household food basket remained R5,530.52, while its basic nutritional food basket cost R6,727.47.
For households receiving the Child Support Grant, the R580 monthly payment was R400.66 below the July cost of a basic nutritious diet for one child.
Baduza said the grant remained below the food poverty line and that households often had to combine different grants to survive.
“Households relying on grants for survival often have to pool these grants together just to survive,” he said.
At the same time, Stats SA’s July figures show that some food prices are falling while others continue to increase, with cereal products, maize meal and white bread among the products recording declines, while several processed meat products recorded annual price increases.
For consumers, the result is a grocery basket in which individual prices are moving in different directions while the overall cost of food remains a significant household expense. - additional reporting by Vivian Warby
yogashen.pillay@nationalmg.co.za